What's Happening?

I think we've lost more blowout games than we have compared to last season. What is happening? I mean, even Amir Johnson got ejected, and quite frankly, he would be the last guy to get thrown out in my opinion.

I know there's been so many threads about all of this, but, how can anyone answer to this? There are so many problems, it's just not clear to what the hell is going on...

Anyone else just feel extremely speechless?

P.S I'm always going to be a hardcore/die-hard Raptor fan, but my faith is at an all-time low after having some serious (and many people believe, REALISTIC) optimism about making the post-season. Now, I feel like we're back in the lottery, without a pick.

a combination of lack of focus some silly gambles and injuries the team at 100% is actually pretty good. Im just happy that now more than ever it seems the time we finally part with Bargnani and perhaps Calderon? is drawing closer.

WOW! Blazers go 0 for 20 from downtown and still beat the Raptors by 18pts. WOW! The Raptors have lost the last three games by a combined 79pts. I look forward to seeing Davis and Val in the starting line up. I have a feeling we are headed for a season with less than 15 wins.

The alpha dog Lowry has been a mutt. Bargs has been a joke offensively this season to go with his usual poor defense. Casey looks like he went from pounding the rock to smoking it. It all adds up to a frustrating to watch season.

.... whats happening is a team that isn't very good and poorly assembled were expected to make the playoffs. Between a few tough losses, a tough schedule and some underperforming those playoffs are slipping away and the players are getting frustrated. It makes every little detail worse than it should be.

.... whats happening is a team lacking physical and mental toughness is getting beat up physically and mentally.

.... whats happening is a culmination of years of poor decision making, poor risk management and poor team building is blowing up in front of fans eyes.

What's happening is that we're a perimeter oriented team which has weak perimeter shooting. We rarely throw the ball into the deep post and though I don't have numbers to back me up I would think the majority of the times we do send it into the post it's to our rookie C whom doesn't have much in the way of post moves as yet. The result is that teams clog the paint and force either Lowry, Bargnani or DeMar to take well contested jump shots.

On the other end of the court we have that same rookie big battling two or three on one while our other big is watching and thinking about how he's going to get his shot off with the next posession. We also have coach Casey whom seems to have a stubborn philosophy of only playing veterans at the later stages of the game and not giving minutes to whomever is playing well on a given night.

No seriously, notice the incessant clearing of the throat during the post-game interview?

As for what is happening... Even the coaching staff seems clueless at this point. Playing the blame-game as fans gets us nowhere, so lets blame everyone anyways...

You think Vancouver ownership is hitting themselves in the head right now grippin' about Memphis' Record ?

Its time for Canada to omit themselves from the NBA, hey we had a good run...

Top Three Reasons this franchise was setup to fail
=================================

1.> Getting talent to sign here is detrimental to a system based on annual salary cap because we always overpay/overvalue mediocre players/personnel.

2.> Marketing and PR dictate the pace of a rebuild "process" in toronto, not stats and talent on the floor. (see quote above?)

3.> Jaded, Naive fan base, (don't worry i'm one of you and no i don't own a pink Calderon Jersey).

So to answer the question as to what is happening, the answer is simple... Nothing.
And to answer the question as to what is wrong, the answer is again, simple... Everything.

So we can point fingers, machine trades, and be disgruntled online, in game or whatever... Nothing will make a difference to the Raptors Brand whatsoever, cause at the end of the day, X amount of people bought their tickets and Y amount of people will watch the games on television, and Nothing ever changes.

Why you ask ?

Answer: Why spend more to bring a championship when the nba profits more overall when a big market wins?

I honestly feel like a complete idiot for having any faith that this team would compete this season.

It's been a slap in the face of the fans and has been a complete and utter embarrassment.

i knew this team wasn't good when I realized we were the worst team in our our division back in september. guys were foamin" over lowry as if he was some type of savoir. 1-5 we have the worst roster in the atlantic, might take derozan over j-rich tho

where is the guy that told me we were going to make the playoffs and brooklyn was overrated? lol, some of you guys need to be realist. ross was a bad pick and jv is not going to be a franchise player. #BringWigginsHomeIn2015 needs its own twitter handle

No seriously, notice the incessant clearing of the throat during the post-game interview?

As for what is happening... Even the coaching staff seems clueless at this point. Playing the blame-game as fans gets us nowhere, so lets blame everyone anyways...

You think Vancouver ownership is hitting themselves in the head right now grippin' about Memphis' Record ?

Its time for Canada to omit themselves from the NBA, hey we had a good run...

Top Three Reasons this franchise was setup to fail
=================================

1.> Getting talent to sign here is detrimental to a system based on annual salary cap because we always overpay/overvalue mediocre players/personnel.

2.> Marketing and PR dictate the pace of a rebuild "process" in toronto, not stats and talent on the floor. (see quote above?)

3.> Jaded, Naive fan base, (don't worry i'm one of you and no i don't own a pink Calderon Jersey).

So to answer the question as to what is happening, the answer is simple... Nothing.
And to answer the question as to what is wrong, the answer is again, simple... Everything.

So we can point fingers, machine trades, and be disgruntled online, in game or whatever... Nothing will make a difference to the Raptors Brand whatsoever, cause at the end of the day, X amount of people bought their tickets and Y amount of people will watch the games on television, and Nothing ever changes.

Why you ask ?

Answer: Why spend more to bring a championship when the nba profits more overall when a big market wins?

Numbers aside, this situation we are in now is far worse than what Vince put us through, and consequentially what we got in return, and also to note i'm just as fed up as the rest of you guys.

Bold 1 - I agree or atleast in part. I brought up the issue of dollar voting in another thread, where the money a consumer spends is a vote in support of the business or product. Anyone who spends money on the team is partially responsible for whats going on with this team. Now clearly if one wants to watch a team play, they will have to spend some money on the team in some form. But if fans really desire change, reducing their raptors consumption is the best way to help. Not going to games, or going to less games. Not buying season tickets, not buying jerseys or gear. etc. It doesn't mean fans have to stop being fans, just find ways to reduce your consumption.

I know I personally haven't attended a game in 4 years. I'll admit its never been easy for myself to attend games in the first place, but I used make sure I went to 3 or 4 games a year. Now its 4 years and counting. Raptors gear - I only have a Bosh jersey a former gf bought me years ago.

Bold 2 - I'm not sure what you mean here. That MLSE/Raptors are concerned with the amount of money the NBA is making? Or that the league wants their large markets to win because its more profitable?

I think with the way the CBA does and has worked, plus numerous market dynamics make large markets have an easier road to take in order to get to a championship or contention. They can afford inefficiencies easier, they can attract certain FAs others can't and can attract FAs at a more affordable price. But OKC and San Antonio are clear examples that small markets (or less attractive markets) can compete. They however need to take a different road than the Lakers or Knicks of the league. The draft is paramount for the non-superstar markets. Then teams need to be efficient about their use of trades and free agency. It may be tougher, it may require more efficiency, it may require different thinking, but it clearly can be done.

The problem as I see it is Colangelo hasn't taken the proper road for this team. He seems to love spending in FA, trades first round picks at the drop of a hat, and is anxious to make deals. He's impatient with the teams growth yet incredibly patient with his players potential thats never realized. While I know some claim he has been building 'OKC style'... I don't think its close. Not even remotely. He never tore the team down to rebuild, he kept the old core intact, and he barely tapped into the draft and did a poor job at that.

Its unfortunate he wasted last season, and now this season with his lack of patiences. But atleast this is happenign now and not 2 years from now and making it a 3 year waste. Time to start the rebuild. A real rebuild. Yes thats going to mean a number of years losing, but its absolutely the best route for this team to take to get to the top.

Not sure how many of you are Leafs fans, but this season reminds me a lot of 09-10 season for the Leafs. We ended the 08-09 season on a high note, which created a lot of hope for the next season. We then took that roster, and added more talent to it (well we thought we did). So everyone was expecting playoffs the next season, but what happened? We started the season something like 1-12. The whole season was terrible, and the Bruins owned our pick which ended up being 2nd overall.

I felt completely hopeless for the Leafs during that year and felt like we'd be terrible forever. I know many think the Leafs are still a joke, but they are definitely finally headed in the right direction (may still have a couple frustrating seasons due to such a young team and questionable goaltending though) and have some great young talent.

So eventually things will get better for the Raps, though it may not start happening until BC is fired and we bring in a GM that does things right.

.... whats happening is a team that isn't very good and poorly assembled were expected to make the playoffs. Between a few tough losses, a tough schedule and some underperforming those playoffs are slipping away and the players are getting frustrated. It makes every little detail worse than it should be.

.... whats happening is a team lacking physical and mental toughness is getting beat up physically and mentally.

.... whats happening is a culmination of years of poor decision making, poor risk management and poor team building is blowing up in front of

I have no doubt that if you put this team into Euroleague, it would be a bottom feeder there as well. Well, maybe a weak middling. And not because of the talent, but because of terrible, terrible basketball. Hypothetically, if you switched Raptors/Denver rosters, Denver's coaching would still do wonders with our talent, while Toronto's coaching would just waste Nuggets' talent and still be way below .500... But Raptors still need a big talent upgrade to make it to playoffs or more.